Weapon master

[oprah_winfrey]

the first 3-4 WM is most important to me, so that I can actually wear armor instead of going in rags to avoid the wpf penalty.

for a 2h build i would rather be 21/18 or 18/21 with IF and the ability to wear medium armor then be 21/21 and wear a gambeson.

[Elmokki]

I find it very interesting that Elmokki has a well reasoned out way of deciding on how much WPF / WM you should take... but it looks only at damage.

For me, the deciding factor in choosing WM5 or WM6 is not the extra damage, but the extra swing speed.

Well, I edited the above post multiple times, but anyway.

The main comparison is between using skillpoints to both increase strength and ps and using skillpoints purely for WM. That's because one point of WM is neglible compared to one point of power strike. Judging purely by damage is stupid, since strength gives you some hp by itself, and if you happen to have spare skillpoints, it'll also let you take more IF for even more HP. Weapon master's swing speed benefit isn't something that's easy to quantify. In World of Warcraft etc damage output is purely about statistics, but here the matter isn't how much damage you can dish out to a training dummy - people can block.

The swing speed difference on reasonably fast weapons is fairly small between 111 wpf and 160ish wpf, but if it helps the player to score even like 2% more hits in, it makes WM a superior stat to PS hands down in situations where a player has to convert skillpoints to strength to get PS versus using most of those points in WM because they already have fairly high agility.

The main question I see here is wether people should get their maximum possible amount of WM or just convert those to strength and PS when possible. The answer is simple. If you don't have absurdly low PS to begin with and don't use your extra strength for anything except that one point of PS, wm is probably better if you can get 5+ of it instead.

So basically what my math says is:

21/21 level 30 build with 7 ath, 7 ps and 3 wm is definitely a viable build, but 18/21 with 7 ath, 6 ps, 7 wm, 3 if is probably better if 7 athletics is a must. You'll do very slightly less damage, but will have more hp and slightly faster swings. 21/18 is considerably (well, under 10% difference) better in terms of damage though.

PS is hands down a better stat than WM, but if you need to spend 7 skillpoints for one PS and could spend 5+ in WM instead, WM is the way to go.

[MrShine]

Let's take a 21/15 build with 5 WM and 7 PS and compare it to a 24/15 build with 0 WM and 8 PS.
(used the cRPG calculator)

21/15 has 148 wpf
24/15 has 114 wpf

Wearing 15 weight in armor (medium) against a target with 40 body armor (medium/light)
Using a 30c weapon...
The 21/15 averages 22 damage.
The 24/15 averages 22.5 damage.

Wearing 15 weight in armor (medium) against a target with 40 body armor (medium/light)
Using a 40c weapon...
The 21/15 averages 33.5 damage.
The 24/15 averages 34.5 damage.

Wearing 15 weight in armor (medium) against a target with 40 body armor (medium/light)
Using a 30p weapon...
The 21/15 averages 30 damage.
The 24/15 averages 30.5 damage.


Just a basic example, but even with a 5 WM difference between the two builds the 1 extra PS still does (just barely) more damage than the 7 PS 5 WM build.  The 30-something wpf that is gained from the 21/15 build almost keeps up with 1 PS, but not quite.  It does however swing slightly quicker, but not by very much. 

Personally in this specific situation I would take the 21/15 1h/shield build over the 24/15 for a level 30, because I value the extra 1 HP & very minor speed increase gained over the very minor damage decrease.  But we're also talking about a drastic 5 WM difference between the two builds. 

On the whole I'm mostly in agreement with Rusty:  WM is mandatory for hybrids & ranged builds, but for almost everything else going 0 WM is perfectly viable and oftentimes probably a better decision for your build.  The one exception is if you are thinking about giving up a LOT of WM for an increase in 1 PS, because it may not always be worth it in those cases since your damage may be comparable by stacking the WM instead.


E: looks like I pretty much echoed what Elmokki was trying to say.

[Uumdi]

Go all or nothin'.  Personal experience, I like getting it with agility builds, because you stack enough wpf to actually make a difference, since the bonus increases with each rank.  If you pump only 2 or 3, you're only getting a few points on top of your cap, like 10 or 12.

On a 27/12, or 24/15 str build though, I wouldn't bother.  Stack ironflesh like a puutie and win the game - and you'll have a couple points for shield if you need.